Nanny Who Wouldn't Leave Says She Wasn't Fired

SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

LOS ANGELES --

The California nanny who has refused to move out claims she wasn't fired. She quit.

Diane Stretton also claims that she worked 90 straight days without a day off or even a coffee or lunch break while helping Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte care for their three children in their Upland home.

Stretton, 64, made her claims to KNX radio after days of refusing to speak about the accusations against her, even when reporters found her living in her car at a police station.

The Bracamontes claim that they hired Stretton as a live-in nanny in early March in exchange for room and board, but she stopped working earlier this month because of physical ailments. When she allegedly refused to come out of her room except to eat, they dismissed her and asked her to leave, the Bracamontes claim. Stretton refused to leave and threatened to sue them for elder abuse and improper firing, the family claims.

"It's exactly the opposite," Stretton told KNX.

"Well, first of all, I wasn't fired, unless you can be fired after you quit. I quit two days before they fired me," she told the station. "And I gave 30 days of notice, which we had agreed to."

Stretton said in the interview that she refused to work only on two days when she was sick.

"This was after 90 days where I hadn't had a day off," she said. Stretton claimed that she never got lunch breaks, coffee breaks or holidays off.

Stretton said the value of her room and board was "trivial" compared to the work she was doing which was "whatever they want, doing cooking, doing heavy house cleaning, taking care of kids. I was using a lot of skills a lot of people would not have had." She claimed she "hardly ever" had access to the bathroom and there was no air conditioning.

"I think they're the con artists," Stretton told the station.

Marc Cohen, a lawyer for the Bracamontes, told ABC News, "The family is deeply disturbed and absolutely denies all of those statements. It's absolutely not true."

Stretton, who left the Bracamontes' home Thursday but has not moved her stuff out, sent an email to Cohen over the weekend setting out conditions for removing her possessions and leaving the home for good by July 4. They included having the media leave the Bracamontes' home, allowing her three more nights in the house and the use of the shower.

During Stretton's standoff with the Bracamontes, her litigious past has emerged. She has a long history of litigation and is listed on California's Vexatious Litigant List, which includes people who have been found to bring legal action that is frivolous or repetitive.

The majority of the lawsuits were directed at her own family members, particularly her two sisters. According to documents, Stretton tried to block her sisters from selling family property.

Last year, Stretton even sued her son, Michael, according to court records, and a car rental agency for property damage and personal injury in connection with a motor vehicle accident.

Court documents show that when Stretton's father, John Richardson, died in 2000, his will included Stretton's two sisters, Donna Tobey and Sharon Freeburn. Richardson "specifically and expressly omitted Stretton,"